The Social Foundations of the Bureaucratic Orderpersonal.lse.ac.uk/KALLINIK/pdf/KallinikosOrg.pdf · institution that inhibits economic growth and threatens ... bureaucracy to the

The Social Foundations of theBureaucratic Order

Jannis KallinikosLondon School of Economics, UK

Abstract. This article views the bureaucratic form of organization asboth an agent and an expression of key modern social innovations that aremost clearly manifested in the non-inclusive terms by which individualsare involved in organizations. Modern human involvement in organiza-tions epitomizes and institutionally embeds the crucial yet often over-looked cultural orientation of modernity whereby humans undertakeaction along well-specified and delimited paths thanks to their capacity toisolate and suspend other personal or social considerations. The organiza-tional involvement of humans qua role agents rather than qua personshelps unleash formal organizing from being tied to the indolence of thehuman body and the languish process of personal or psychological re-orientation. Thanks to the loosening of these ties, the bureaucratic organ-ization is rendered able to address the shifting contingencies underlyingmodern life by reshuffling and re-assembling the roles and role patterns bywhich it is made. The historically unique adaptive capacity of bureaucracyremains, though hidden behind the ubiquitous presence of routines andstandard operating procedures that are mistakenly exchanged for theessence of the bureaucratic form. Key words. adaptability; behaviour;bureaucracy; formal role systems; modernity; role enactment

‘The reigning myth today is that the evils of society can all be understoodas evils of impersonality, alienation, and coldness. The sum of these threeis an ideology of intimacy . . . [that] transmutes political categories intopsychological categories.’ Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public Man

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The End of the Bureaucratic AgePopular belief associates bureaucracy with routine, initiative-stiflingoffice work and an introvert organizational culture of rigid administrativeprocedures and redundant complexity. Although social reality seldomappears as simple as the popular image wants it to be, this oversimplifiedpicture of the bureaucratic form of organization has nevertheless beenwidely shared and persistent. Critical humanism and artistic aversion1 tobureaucratic systems have allied with left-inspired criticism of the organ-izational practices of capitalism or statism to re-enhance the image ofbureaucracy as an institution that degrades human dignity and perpetu-ates social inequalities (e.g. Adorno and Horkeimer [1937] 1972;Marcuse, 1955; Castoriadis, 1985, 1987). For quite different, though notunrelated, reasons bureaucracy has been faced with distrust and distasteby liberal neo-classical and post neo-classical economics. While formalorganization has occasionally been seen as a reasonable governancealternative to the market (Coase, 1937; Arrow, 1974; Williamson, 1975),the dominant picture in economics has tended to view bureaucracy as aninstitution that inhibits economic growth and threatens individual liberty(see, for example, Hayek, 1960).

In recent years, bureaucracy has repeatedly received a severe verdictthat predicts its unmistakable demise. Another basic form of organizationoften referred to as the entrepreneurial or network-shaped organization(e.g. Heckscher and Donnellon, 1994; Rifkin, 2000) is said to be pushingbureaucracy to the margins of the contemporary organizational andeconomic scene. However, apart from a few studies outside the immedi-ate realm of management and organization theory (e.g. Castells, 1996,2001; Fukuyama, 1997; Carnoy, 2000), the claim concerning the demiseof bureaucracy has not been supported by the systematic investigation ofthe organizational and occupational order of modernity. As a matter offact there has never been a serious intention in the fad-driven mainstreammanagement discipline (a major exponent of the bureaucratic demise) ofsystematically comparing bureaucracy with alternative forms of organ-ization.

To the serious student of organization forms, the juxtaposition of thebureaucratic and entrepreneurial forms of organization does not hold (duGay, 1994, 2000). I hope to show in this article that the entrepreneurialand managerial critique of bureaucracy is based on oversimplified andstylized images of the bureaucratic form of organization. Most signific-antly, such a critique is marked by an astonishingly naıve functionalismdevoid of any historical awareness. These limitations contribute to themisinterpretation of bureaucracy through the overrepresentation ofsecondary characteristics of the organizational order underlyingmodernity. Management ‘theory’ has often given proof of surprisinglypoor historical awareness but the assertion of organizational change,profound enough to justify the end of bureaucratic age, makes such an

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inadequacy woefully evident. Neither bureaucracy nor its asserted altern-atives can properly be understood unless modernity and the social andorganizational innovations it has brought about are sufficientlyappreciated.

Despite, however, the oversimplified character of the discourse con-cerning the end of the bureaucratic age, it is crucial not to lose sight of themultifaceted economic, technological and social changes of which such adiscourse is but one symptom. Such changes are associated with thediffusion of values, orientations or lifestyles that increasingly reflect theculture of individualism and the decline of legitimacy of public institu-tions (see, for example, Beck, 1992, 2000; Sennett, 1992). Coupled withglobalization, the weakening of the nation state and the rapid growth ofinformation and communication technologies, the culture of individual-ism keeps on redefining core characteristics of modernity. Though thesedevelopments remain far from being crystallized, there is indeed someevidence to suggest that current socio-cultural and technological changesconverge to the redrawing of the prevailing boundaries of the private andpublic world, work from leisure, family and community.2

Under these conditions, the very forms by which individuals havetraditionally been tied to social institutions are bound to change(Baumann, 1992; Beck, 1992; Sennett, 1992, 2000). New forms of indi-vidual involvement in organizations (e.g. flexible and temporary forms ofemployment) develop to accommodate the shifts in social institutions,values and lifestyles mentioned above. At the same time information andcommunication technologies become an important agent of organiza-tional and occupational change (Rifkin, 1995, 2000; Castells, 1996, 2001).The precise ways, though, by which organization forms are connected tothese developments remain a contested terrain. Neither the organiza-tional forms nor the mechanisms that bring them about are sufficientlystudied or clear. The appreciation of the impact of these changes on theprevailing forms of organization would seem to require the seriousreconsideration of the social institution of bureaucracy in ways that stepbeyond stereotyped images of it.

Let it be clear that the critical attitude vis-a-vis the claims thatannounce the demise of bureaucracy and the emergence of post-bureaucratic forms is not prompted by any dedicated commitment to thebureaucratic form of organization. The author neither condemns norsupports bureaucracy. Rethinking the foundations of bureaucracy servesthe purpose of disclosing the social, cultural and economic roots of thisinstitution and appreciating its limits against the background of a widerhistorical understanding. Undeniably, bureaucracy has entertained anumber of tensions, most vividly shown in the contrast between theideals of justice, meritocracy and egalitarianism by which it has beenlegitimized and the centralized and often awful practices with which ithas been associated.

The Social Foundations of the Bureaucratic OrderJannis Kallinikos

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In the next section we take up the issue of rule-bound behaviour that isoften seen as the epitome of bureaucracy. This shows that standardizationis a ubiquitous aspect of contemporary organizations that contrastssharply with the assumed malleability and flexibility of post-bureaucraticorganizing, calling for the careful reconsideration of the bureaucraticform. The following section undertakes precisely that task. Bureaucracyis identified with the non-inclusive coupling of the individual to theorganization consequent upon the separation of the role from the person.On the basis of this claim, the article ventures to dissociate bureaucracyfrom the dominant connotation of an inflexible and rigid form. It showsthat the non-inclusive modulation of the individual–organization relation-ship makes bureaucracy the first and as yet sole organization form inwhich individuals are tied to organizations in selective, mobile andreversible terms. Such terms give the bureaucratic organization thepossibility of addressing emerging contingencies. Then we attempt toshow that the non-inclusive involvement of individuals into organiza-tions is the primary matrix of relations out of which other derivativecharacteristics, often taken as the epitome of bureaucracy, such asstandardization and centralization, emerge.

The Ubiquitous Character of StandardizationStandard conceptions of bureaucracy reflecting the Weberian legacyconsider this organization form as a major social innovation, essential tothe expansion of industrial capitalism and the embeddedness of crucialsocial and economic goals or ideals such as progress, growth, meritocracyand egalitarianism. On this view, bureaucracy coincides with the adventof modernity: it is part and parcel of it (Luhmann, 1982, 1995; Gellner,1983, 1996; Seyer, 1991). In organization studies, though, as Clegg (1994)has observed, the term has been used in a narrower fashion. Organizationtheorists defined bureaucracy in terms of a limited number of keycharacteristics and sought to explore empirically the degree to whichthese characteristics were present in various organizations. According tosuch an understanding of bureaucracy, an organization could emerge asmore or less bureaucratic, depending on the intensity by which the keycharacteristics of standardization, formalization, centralization and roleand functional specialization were governing its operations (see, forexample, Pugh et al., 1963, 1968; Scott, 1981; Hall, 1982).

A reinterpretation of these studies suggests that the four or five dimen-sions used to describe the bureaucratic principles of organization couldcollapse into hierarchy and rule-bound behaviour as the epitomes of thebureaucratic form of organization. In one sense, rule-bound behaviourconveys even more than hierarchy the traditional understanding of thebureaucracy as a system of routines and standard operating procedures(Perrow, 1986). Rule-bound behaviour is expressed in an elaborate socialedifice of rules, routines and formal role systems stipulating job posi-


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tions, duties and jurisdictions and regulating interaction patterns. Rule-bound behaviour has often been seen to be at the heart of the behaviouralmechanics governing bureaucracy. The popular and artistic distaste forbureaucracy derives by and large from this alleged depersonalizedfunctioning of formal organizations.

However, the historical background of the social relations out of whichbureaucracy emerged suggests some important qualifications. Rule-bound behaviour was fashioned to accommodate the functioning ofmodern organizations whose operations could no longer be anchored inthe normative certainty of Gemeinschaft. Being active on a spatial andtemporal scale that extended far beyond the limited world of pre-moderncommunities, modern organizations needed both the legitimacy and newprinciples for controlling their operations. The construction of formalrole systems for regulating human behaviour in organizations emerged asa historical innovation, essential in sustaining the egalitarian ethos ofmodern society. Formal role systems provide transparent motives andlegible behaviour, on the basis of which one can decide whether citizensare treated equally and the employees of the organization protected fromany abuse or arbitrary exercise of power (Perrow, 1986). By the sametoken, the bracketing of personal goals and the imposition of a formalorder reflect the awareness that the pursuit of personal ends within thecontext of an organization may well undermine the goals and the ade-quate functioning of an organization (du Gay, 1994, 2000). The institu-tionalization of expectations and action patterns coinciding withrule-bound behaviour were thus an essential means for avoiding hap-hazard initiatives and opportunism, and improving the performance ofpublic organizations.

Depersonalized behaviour is obviously not limited to public organiza-tions. Although it may have been originally occasioned by major ideals ofthe emerging bourgeois society that were socially embedded throughprecisely the adequate functioning of state or public bureaucracies, thebureaucratic standardization of behaviour describes the entire organiza-tional landscape of modernity. In one form or another, depersonalizedconduct has been made an indispensable principle of all formal organ-izing in modernity. It has been applied with even greater severity inprivate firms and industrial organizations, where the design of jobs andthe systems of surveillance tied to them emerged as the outcome of therelentless drive towards cost reduction, achieved through minute divisionof labour and economies of scale (Chandler, 1977). Rather than simplyregulating behaviour, industrial organizations sought to regulate even theminutest details of workers’ bodily movements (Braverman, 1974; Noble,1984). Standardization in that sense has come close to betraying the veryideals with which it has been associated. The inhuman, sometimesbrutal, relations that prevailed in the industrial factories, in some cases aslate as the outbreak of the Second World War, are indeed hard toreconcile with the ideals of liberty and justice.


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Managerialist thinking easily relegates the job-designing principles ofindustrial capitalism to the past, assuming that they are increasinglysurpassed by important developments in the market environment and thetechnological infrastructure of production (Womack and Jones, 1996). Itwould be difficult indeed to deny the crucial organizational importanceof major economic and technological innovations. Contemporary tech-nology, in particular, has through extended automation changed sig-nificantly the conditions of production in industrial firms and othercontexts of economic activity (Kallinikos, 2001). However, the status ofthese changes at the shop floor of the industrial factory and the outcomeof these developments for the issue of behavioural mechanics thatconcerns us here are not entirely clear. There exist a number of studies tosuggest a rather mixed and at times negative picture of recent trends,indicating greater control of employees, intensification of work (Zuboff,1988; Kling, 1996) and novel forms of alienation (Harrison, 1994; Carnoy,2000; Sennett, 2000; Murray et al., 2002).

Computer and information technologies do not make up an unequivocalally to flexible patterns of behaviour, as the exponents of the post-bureaucratic or entrepreneurial form of organization often assume(Kallinikos, 1998). The expanding organizational involvement of soft-ware packages might indeed contribute to the standardization ofbehaviour. Software packages are currently major means for structuringand organizing work in contemporary organizations. Most of the timethey are conceived and constructed by specialized software developingcompanies, in contexts other than those they are called upon to monitor.The construction of software packages by specialized organizations indi-cates that they are initially responses to abstract definitions of problems.Without this requirement the very development of programs would beimpossible in the first place (Simon, 1969).

The increasing organizational involvement of de-contextualizedsystems of managing and monitoring information and the requirements ofcross-contextual information comparability impose standardization in theform of a quasi-universal language of information processing. Undeniably,the introduction of software packages into organizations is a complexsocio-technical process that involves deliberate and haphazard modifica-tions. It is well known that software packages can be reconfigured to fitthe demands of specific contexts or used in ways that were never thoughtof at the very moment of their inception (Ciborra, 2000). Yet the verysubstratum of software packages that reflects the logicist premises onwhich they are built and the cognitive mechanics of symbol processingcannot be undone (Lackoff, 1995) by reconfiguring or resisting the useand functionality of particular software packages. But even at the moremacroscopic level of everyday work, software packages punctuate experi-ence and impose uniformity through:

● The standardized definition of problems (or problem spaces).


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● The specification of the tasks that the problem thus defined involves.● The delineation of the procedural steps necessary to enact the logic of

the software package (Zuboff, 1988; Kling, 1996).

Software packages are thus far from innocent means that support organ-izational operations. Rather, the three categories of effects stated aboveand the very cognitive foundations of software packages suggest that theyhypostasize both meaning and action patterns. As perhaps any tech-nology, software packages embody human experience, inviting particularmodes of understanding and action that involve both the framing of thereality to be addressed, the determination of particular tasks and theirsequential patterning. It is not by accident that information technologyhas now and then been considered as a mechanized contemporaryalternative to the rule-bound behaviour of bureaucracy (e.g. Beniger,1986).

Information systems undeniably promote standardization, even thoughhomogeneity and uniformity may not be their sole effects. Currenttechnology also enables a form of bricolage, exercised upon the hugenumber of information items and applications that constitute the land-scape of most contemporary organizations (Ciborra, 2000). Softwarepackages are in this way pregnant with various option possibilities thatare produced by the play of permutations which the many informationitems underlying them can enter. Also, the development of links acrossorganizations allows for the relatively easy crossing of institutionalboundaries in ways that may promote alternative models of individualand organizational action (Castells, 2001). But these rather obviouseffects should not hide the deep standardization of cognition and action,accomplished by the diffusion and organizational involvement of infor-mation systems. Standardization goes underneath the surface flexibilityenabled by current technology. It involves uniform procedures for prob-lem definition and problem solving, imposed by automated models ofcognition, as described above. It even entails the standardization ofinterfaces, protocols and various hardware and software components(Hanseth, 2000). The ubiquitous character of standardization in con-temporary life provides evidence in support of the claim that it cannot bemade the exclusive arbiter of the bureaucratic form of organization.

The evidence that standardization represents a viable and widelydiffused job and process design methodology is furthermore supportedby the rapid and impressive diffusion of the standards of the ISO seriesduring the last two decades. It is obvious that the ISO standards lead torule-bound and standardized patterns of behaviour. But standardizationrepresents an ideal even in models of management underlying theentrepreneurial or network form of organization, such as total qualitymanagement (TQM). Product quality in TQM models is by and largedefined in terms of its capacity to conform to a set of pre-specifiedstandards. Therefore, the careful design of these standards as well as the


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standardization of the process by which the product (or a service) isproduced represent the fundamental requirements for achieving thisgoal. Indeed, TQM is a methodology of predictability, achieved throughthe minute description of various work tasks and processes and carriedout in ways that demand active involvement of the employees of theorganization throughout the production process (see, for example,Womack and Jones, 1996).

Standardization of behaviour seems furthermore to represent a viablejob design methodology in types of organization that may be intuitivelythought to represent a contrast to the popular image of rigid bureau-cracies. Everyday observations suggest that organizations that are com-monly assumed to be market-driven and customer targeting, such asairlines, banks or insurance companies, use standardized and largelystylized modes of conduct in abundance. Standardized behaviour notonly continues to play a crucial role in many types of service organiza-tions but some service, ‘consumer-responding’ organizations haveextended the regulative domain of standardization, allowing it to shapesuch spontaneous behaviours such as smiling, wording, eye contact andother minute aspects of human conduct.

In sum, this brief review and re-contextualization of recent develop-ments does not lend immediate support to the liberal neo-romanticism ofindividual creativity and initiative taking, following the decline ofbureaucracy. Standardization is as ubiquitous as the very changes thatmay be taken to suggest the emergence of new forms of organization.There is a need, therefore, to turn to a more thorough and systematicstudy of bureaucracy. The current controversy between bureaucraticforms of organization and the asserted alternatives must be placed in awider and coherent framework that may give it its appropriate meaning.

The Social Innovations of BureaucracyThe bureaucratic form of organization is both the outcome of the widersocial and cultural orientations of modernity and a major agent forinstitutionally embedding these orientations. The contribution bureau-cracy has historically made to this goal is most clearly manifested in thehighly distinctive mode by which it came to regulate the individual–organization relationship. For first time in history, an organization formsystematically decoupled the terms by which individuals were tied toorganizations from concrete persons (Weber, 1970, 1978). Supported bythe wider anthropological orientations of modernity, bureaucracy dis-sociated organizational role-taking from social position and the experien-tial totality that is commonly associated with the personality or theparticular mode of being of a person. It thus inaugurated a new structuralprinciple by which individuals have come to be tied to organizations interms other than inclusive. Non-inclusiveness implies that individualsare not contained in organizations and these last are not made of the


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aggregate of persons but of roles and the patterns brought about by theinterdependence of roles (Luhmann, 1995; Tsivacou, 1997). The inescap-able corporeality of the human condition should not be taken to implythat individuals enter organizations in their full-blown cognitive, emo-tional and social complexity.

It is crucial to appreciate the distinctive status of relations out of whichbureaucracy emerges as the modern form of organization. The role, not theperson, constitutes the fundamental structural and behavioural element ofmodern formal organizing. Organizations are not made of individualsdistributed over a complex landscape of job positions but of patternsbuilt by those abstract operational requirements we call roles. Roles areenacted by the intrinsically modern capacity of contemporary humans tosystematically and consistently suspend all other personal or organiza-tional aspects that do not bear upon the role and to undertake action (e.g.machine operator, accountant, salesman, secretary) along delimited andwell-specified paths. The living energy and the general communicativecapacity of humans are essential resources for organizations (as for allsocial life) but this should not lead one to assume that formal organiza-tions are made of individuals qua persons.

Bureaucracy thus introduces an abstract conception of work as a set ofdelimited behavioural choices (i.e. duties) that can be dissociated fromthe totality of the lifeworld and from the distinctive mode of being ofevery person. A major objective and an important consequence of thebureaucratic modulation of the individual–organization relationship isthat individuals join the organization on the basis of considerations thatrelate to their ability to assume a role, that is, on the basis of meritsprovided by education, working experience, and so on. At the same time,other aspects of an individual’s life are severed from bureaucratic regula-tion. The non-inclusive involvement of individuals in organizations issustained by the adequate differentiation of both individual and sociallife. That is, the characteristics that derive from education, professionalspecialization and working experience cover only a part (admittedly avery important one) of the totality of an individual’s roles and projects. Inthe social context of modernity, other organizations and institutions thatare clearly and unambiguously differentiated from work organizations(for example, family and community) represent a crucial outlet for theindividual’s interests and activities. The segmentation of life into separ-ate and relatively independent spheres is an essential requirement for theforms of human involvement upon which bureaucracy is predicated(Kallinikos, 2003).

The bureaucratic form and the non-inclusive way of modulating theindividual–organization relationship coincided with the gradual dis-solution of class stratification and the immobile, hereditary social rela-tions characteristic of the late feudal world (Luhmann, 1982, 1995, 1996;Gellner, 1983, 1996). Bureaucracy emerged as the dominant modern


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organization form out of the overall rational and functional pre-occupations of modernity. However, the novel way of orchestrating theindividual–organization relationship represented itself an importantvehicle for constructing a new organizational form, premised onuniversalism and meritocracy as major principles for realizing andembedding the bourgeois ideals of individual liberty and justice (du Gay,2000). By standardizing the requirements of role performance and formal-izing the process of role taking, the bureaucratic organization became thevehicle through which jobs became potentially available to anyone thatfulfilled the requirements of job specification. It is through the veryseparation of the role from the person that such an availability can berendered possible and a labour contract be signed that makes the terms ofthe agreement legible and law enforceable (Weber, 1947, 1970, 1978).

Bureaucracy and modernity are therefore inextricably bound up withone another. Bureaucracy is the organization form of modernity. It isclosely associated with the overall cultural orientations of modern man,the social mobility that coincided with the gradual dissolution of pre-modern stratification, and the burgeoning bourgeois ideals of individualfreedom and justice, which it helped itself to embed. In this respect,bureaucracy contrasts sharply with pre-modern forms of organizing thatrelied by and large on the principle of inclusion for regulating therelationship of people to organizations. The differentiation of personal,social and working aspects of identity was elementary in the agricultural,feudal world. As a consequence these aspects of people’s life could not beseparated from one another, as is the case in modernity (Gellner, 1983). Inthe pre-modern, segmentary societies, the social position—defined by afixed and basically immobile social stratification regulated and repro-duced as a rule by hereditary relations—determined by and large theworking identity of people. The relatively open space of bourgeoisdemocracy and the social mobility associated with it formed the basicconditions for the emergence of the organizational form that Weber camegradually to designate as bureaucracy.

The far-reaching significance of modulating the individual–organization relationship in terms other than inclusive emerges clearly inthe background of the comparison of bureaucracy with the organizationalform that Goffman (1961) once called total organizations, that is, mentalhospitals, prisons, monasteries, army barracks, religious sects, and so on.In contrast to the non-inclusive coupling of the individual to the organ-ization underlying bureaucracy, total organizations are based on thestructural principle of inclusion. Individuals are contained in the organ-ization, they are in other words ‘inmates’. Total organizations imposetheir austere order on the entire personality of their members. Theydo not distinguish between personality and collective. The term‘individual’, as we know it, is alien to this form of organization. Totalorganizations thus provide an instructive contrast to bureaucracy. Thelatter may owe part of its administrative practices to the meticulous


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discipline worked out in the austere world of monasteries (Mumford,1934), yet an abysmal chasm separates the bureaucratic organization frommonasteries or other total organizations. Such a chasm is preciselyproduced by the non-inclusive, conspicuously modern and abstractmode of regulating the individual–organization relationship.

The profound differences separating inclusive and non-inclusivemodes of regulating the individual–organization relationship are perhapsobscured by the impressive diffusion of bureaucratic principles and thewithdrawal of total organizations to the fringes of modern everydaysocial encounters. Being the ‘normal’ yardstick of functional ability andinstitutional legitimacy, bureaucracy and the non-inclusive modulationof the individual–organization relationship tend to be taken for granted.Strange as it may seem at first glance, Foucault’s (1977) highly innovativeuse of panopticon (and the prison) may be taken to suggest total organiza-tions as the model for understanding the modern organizational andinstitutional order. As indicated by the relevance which monastic lifemay have assumed for bureaucracy, there exist undeniable affinities insome of the forms and mechanisms by which these two widely differingarchetypes of organization assure compliance and construct conformity.However, despite these affinities, bureaucracy and total organizationsdiffer in some substantial ways. Modern discipline in institutional lifepresupposes the anthropological distinction of the role from the personand the structural device that embeds such a distinction. Without such aseparation, the objectification of one’s contributions and the self-monitoring along measurable or governable dimensions would beimpossible or, at least, hampered substantially. A careful reading ofFoucault re-enhances this claim (Foucault, 1977, 1980, 1988). The tangleof behaviours, orientations and techniques that constitute humans quapersons must be dissolved to become the target of measurement,examination and control (Kallinikos, 1996; Hasselbladh and Kallinikos,2000).

Selectivity, Mobility and ReversibilityDespite its commonsense and, to a certain degree, justified associationswith rigid and inflexible behaviour, bureaucracy is the first and perhapssole organizational form capable of addressing the demands that incessantsocial, economic and technological change induces. As already sug-gested, the organizational involvement of individuals qua roles impliesthe dissociation of the process of organizing from the emotional andcognitive complexity of agents qua persons. By contrast to persons, rolescan be adapted, modified, redesigned, abandoned or reshuffled to addressthe emerging technical, social and economic demands the organization isfacing. The bureaucratic form can thus shape the contributions of peoplewithout demanding basic changes in their personality, other than thoserelated to attitudes and skill mastery. This is precisely accomplished


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through the detailed design of roles and the rules tied to their perform-ance. In this light, rule-bound behaviour is inter alia motivated by theproject of adapting to contingent demands, rather than the other wayaround, which the conventional understanding of bureaucracy as simplyroutine seems to suggest. To what extent organizational and social rolescan be severely decoupled from the totality that makes the distinctivemode of being of every human (Tsivacou, 1997) remains of course ahighly delicate issue. However, both bureaucracy and modern societywere built on the premise that such a severe or adequate separation ispossible (Mangham, 1995; Sennett, 2000).

The cardinal bureaucratic premise of non-inclusiveness is bound toproduce a relationship of the individual to the organization that ismarked by selectivity, mobility and reversibility (Luhmann, 1982, 1995;Gellner, 1983, 1996). Selectivity is the outcome of the fundamentalassumption that individuals taking organizational roles are expected tosuspend non-role demands and act on the basis of a well-specified anddelimited set of criteria that constitute the role (job description andspecification, duties and jurisdictions, field of responsibility). The mobil-ity in the individual–organization relationship is produced by the factthat a role, being an abstract set of functional requirements, can beunleashed from the particular circumstances into which it is embedded,and be transferred across various organizational contexts (Hassebladhand Kallinikos, 2000). Mobility is furthermore enhanced by the reversibleterms of individuals’ involvement in organizations. Reversibility impliesthat jobs can be altered or redesigned and the organizational sanctioningof job positions modified or even withdrawn. The relationship is alsoreversible from the point of view of the individual who can invokeseveral reasons for quitting an organization, even though this may bringnegative pecuniary or legal consequences.

Against the background of these observations, bureaucracy emerges asan altogether different institution from the conventional image thatidentifies bureaucratic organizational forms with a sort of behaviouralmechanics and incapacity to change. Indeed, the demands of the currentage for contingent (local and functionally adaptable), mobile and revers-ible (temporary) patterns of behaviour cannot but be satisfied by anorganization form that strengthens the bureaucratic premises wherebyindividuals are tied to the organization in terms other than inclusive.Shorter time frames for organizational action, employment forms otherthan those implied by lifetime contracts, diffuse tasks that demand theconstant redesigning of roles, virtual relations, all presuppose that indi-viduals are coupled to organizations in terms that are characterized byselectivity, mobility and reversibility.

As construed here the modulation of the individual–organizationrelationship in selective, mobile and reversible terms represents thecornerstone of bureaucracy. However, while rule-bound behaviour androle specialization can be directly associated with the selective, mobile


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and reversible terms by which individuals are coupled to organizations,it is not entirely clear how the hierarchical constitution of bureaucracythat represents one of its crucial attributes can be related to these terms.Hierarchy, though, is a pervasive trans-cultural and trans-historicalcharacteristic that cannot be exclusively attributed to bureaucracy(Dumont, 1967). What is perhaps distinctive in the hierarchical config-uration of bureaucratic organization is the relatively clear and rule-boundregulation of the exercise of authority. The jurisdictional domain ofauthority is specified and delimited while its exercise is governed byrules to constitute what Weber (1947) referred to as rational-legal author-ity. The delimited and rule-bound regulation of authority is precisely theoutcome of the selective, mobile and reversible terms of modulating theindividual–organization relationship. Authority is tied to the office (i.e.the role), exercised upon a specific domain of organizational operationswhile its organizational sanctioning can be withdrawn at everymoment.

The understanding of bureaucracy in the terms described so far repre-sents only a very brief description of the complex social and culturalprocesses underlying it. The interpretation of bureaucracy solely in termsby which individuals are tied to organization leaves out of considerationvital social and cultural processes that sustain the bureaucratic form oforganization and other modern institutions. It has already been notedthat a number of factors contributed to the emergence and diffusion of thebureaucratic organization and the ability to modulate the individual–organization relationship in a non-inclusive fashion. Crucial among themwere the decoupling of the social status of individuals from their positionin the system of production, the consequent social mobility broughtabout by bourgeois democracy and the relatively clear separation ofprivate life from the public world. Closely related to these changes werethe development of capitalism and the market economy. Other crucialfactors involved the very anthropological foundations of individualismand the subtle cultural shifts by means of which the world was increas-ingly understood as the very object of human intentions, and calcul-ability and rationality were rendered the universal mode of cognition(Heidegger, 1977). The modulation, therefore, of the individual–organization relationship in selective, mobile and reversible termsevolves within the wider context of a social and cultural universe that wehere cannot but take largely for granted.

The Double Articulation of BureaucracyIf bureaucracy is not precisely the rigid organization form commonlyassumed then how are we to interpret many contemporary trends thatseem to suggest the emergence of forms of organization that depart, inone way or another, from the standard bureaucratic version that domin-ated modernity? Virtual organization, network models of organization,


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forms of employment other than those implied by stable, clear-cut jobarrangements and lifetime contracts, and flexible production systems canall be invoked as major cases that break with the classical bureaucraticprinciples of organization.3 Do not these examples really suggest bureau-cracy to be on the verge of concluding its historical circle?

An important corollary that emerges from the preceding analysis is thatstandardized behaviour represents a ubiquitous element of all modernorganizing that seems unlikely to be suspended by the trends subsumedunder such catchwords as network, virtual or entrepreneurial forms oforganization. Standardization is essential to all non-haphazard humanaction and communication that transcend the limits of particular con-texts (Hasselbladh and Kallinikos, 2000). As a consequence, organizationforms that claim some sort of context independence and universalitycannot but exhibit at least a minimum of standardization. A second andperhaps more crucial insight following the analysis undertaken in thepreceding pages concerns the relation of standardization to flexibility andthe dissociation of bureaucracy from standardization. The bureaucraticform of organization cannot be simply equated with routines and stand-ard operating procedures, no matter how important or ubiquitous theyhappen to be. Standardized behaviour constitutes the substratum, as itwere, of which organizational action is made. Routines, procedures androles are the elements of an organizational ars combinatoria capable ofconstantly reassembling these elements to address the ceaseless emer-gence of contingencies, underlying the contemporary condition.

The far-reaching consequences of this modular, as it were, constitutionof bureaucracy emerge against the background of the metaphorical asso-ciations provided by standardized notation such as alphabetic writing ormusic notation (Kallinikos, 1996). The ability to bring together thecharacters of a notational system in various combinations is ultimatelydependent on the standardization of every character and its clear distinc-tion from other characters. Unless the standardization and finite differ-entiation of the notational elements of a system are accomplished, norules can be worked out to govern their combinations (Goodman, 1976).A notational system that is composed of elements that dissolve into theirsubstratum or melt constantly into one another eludes semiosis, andbetrays the very purpose that it is supposed to serve (Kallinikos, 1996).Standardization forms a fundamental condition for the huge number ofcombinations (certainly under a number of constraints) that the standar-dized elements of a system can enter. Looked upon this way, standardiza-tion is a prerequisite for semiotic flexibility. Any system that is based onsimilar principles of architecture is bound to exhibit behavioural orsemiotic flexibility.

However, to avoid the conspicuous logicist associations that couldarise from the comparison of organizational action with symbolic nota-tion (Simon, 1969), we could pursue the analogy of bureaucracy with oneof the most complex and resilient institutions of social life, namely,


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natural language. The picture of bureaucracy painted in this articlesuggests that the bureaucratic form of organization could be conceived asbeing governed by what structuralists once called the principle of doublearticulation of language.4 Like language (phonemes), bureaucracy iscomposed, at a first level, by a fairly standardized number of elements(e.g. routines, tasks, procedures, roles) that, seen separately from oneanother, may convey the impression of a fixed and limited population ofbehaviours, devoid of meaning or signification. This is precisely pro-duced by the ability to bring these elements together to various largerpatterns (i.e. the second level) that acquire meaning and purpose due totheir capacity to respond to emerging social projects. The abstract char-acter of the organizational architecture that coincides with the doublearticulation of bureaucracy contrasts sharply with the readily observablereality of routines and standardized procedures and may perhaps be heldresponsible for the widely diffused association of bureaucracy withstandardization and rigidification.

The many configurations that can be produced by a system organizedin a way resembling the double articulation of natural language providean indication of the enormous potential such a system disposes foradapting to changing conditions. Through reshuffling, recombination andoccasional redesign of its elements the system becomes capable ofaddressing emerging situations that may demand responses differentfrom those the system has produced so far. Despite the many constraintsthat may be thought to underlie the combinability of the elements(Kallinikos, 1996, 1998) a huge number of combinations are indeedavailable that may give the organization a broad repertoire of structuraland behavioural options. The quest for flexibility cannot therefore beaddressed in a genuine fashion unless contemporary forms of organiza-tion are built on the very foundations of bureaucracy as outlined in thistext. Only by being able to reassemble the standardized elements bywhich it is made of, to produce new configurations (i.e. products,services, action patterns, and so on), can an organization hope to copewith the constant springing up of contingencies. A prerequisite for doingso is to allow individuals to be tied to systems in selective, mobile andreversible forms.

The organizational involvement of humans qua roles makes bureau-cracy capable of unleashing the process of organizing from the inescap-able context-embeddedness of the human body and the intractablecomplexity of experiences that underlie human beings qua persons. In sodoing, it sets the premises for a form of organization free from therestricted mobility of the human body and the languid process of personaland psychological reorientation. Bureaucracy’s abstract principles oforganization are the hull out of which virtual relations are bound toemerge. Virtual organization is indeed contained as a germ in the veryseparation of the role from the person, and the design and enactment ofaction patterns that are only loosely coupled to the corporeality and


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psychological complexity of humans (Baudrillard, 1983, 1988). Thesocial and psychological conditions necessary for the emergence ofbureaucracy give an indication of the profound institutional changenecessary to build formal organizations on premises other than thoseimplied by bureaucracy.

The claims advanced so far do not necessarily deny some perhapscrucial differences that seem to be underlying the institutional context(late modernity) in which many organizations currently operate. Wementioned in the introduction several factors (e.g. frequent economic andtechnological change, individualism and globalization) that distinguishthe current environment into which most organizations operate from theasserted stability of bureaucratic contexts. It is a widespread assumptionthat these factors drive the current shift away from the bureaucratic formof organizations. However, such an assumption makes sense only ifbureaucracy is identified with a rigid and inflexible organization form.Placed against the background of the preceding analysis, such aninterpretation of the organizational order of modernity emerges as regret-tably inadequate. The fast pace and unpredictability of social, economicand technological change indeed make necessary the strengthening orelaboration (rather than the abandonment) of the social and organiza-tional innovations introduced by modernity and bureaucracy. Themobile, selective and reversible relations such innovations promoteconstitute the sine qua non, the virtual matrix, as it were, out of whichconcrete instantiations addressing specific sets of circumstancesemerge.

There will certainly be occasions of radical environmental change thatmay require the reinvention and redefinition of the primary organiza-tional substratum of routines, standard operating procedures and rolesrather than their mere recombination. New technologies produce a dif-ferent segmentation of organizational tasks. This possibility is undeniablypresent. The comparison of language with forms of organization is, afterall, metaphorical. However, in the social realm of organizations, the denovo invention of the entire population of jobs, positions and proceduresis a rather rare case and is not supported by empirical facts. Most of thetime, novel situations can be managed through a complementary elabora-tion (elimination or addition of new roles, jobs and procedures) of a basicpopulation of primary elements and the reassembling of these into newconfigurations. At other times, the comprehensive remaking of the firstorganizational substratum itself may not have such far-reaching implica-tions as may seem at first glance. The remaking of organizational tasks,roles and procedures in such cases is based on a very similar logic forsegmenting and structuring the totality of organizational work. Flexiblemanufacturing represents a case in point, producing its allegedly custom-ized products through variable standardization of a basic population ofcomponents reassembled into final products or services. Contemporaryarchitecture too nowadays produces variable design forms by exploring


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the possibilities of recombining a population of standardized buildingcomponents (Kallinikos, 2001).

On the other hand, the shorter time frames of change and the criss-crossing of the organizational horizon by contingencies of various sortsundeniably threaten to shatter the modular constitution of bureaucracyinto the very pieces from which it is composed. But it is of utmostimportance to uphold that the centrifugal forces produced by incessantchange arise precisely out of bureaucracy’s capacity to respond to theemerging contingencies and not by its inability to act in novel ways.

Constitutive and Variable CharacteristicsThe claims advanced so far inevitably lead to the crucial issue concern-ing the premises by which a system controls itself. Before an organizationdecides to redefine and reorganise its constitutive elements to producenovel responses to the contingencies it confronts, it needs a mechanismfor detecting and handling contingencies. Information must be gathered,processed and transmitted throughout the system. Decisions based oninformation must be made in timely fashion, communicated and trans-formed into courses of action. Questions of this sort are coped with bymeans of the distribution of authority and responsibility (centralization).A claim that is often made against the bureaucratic form of organizationis that the propagation of information and decisions throughout thesystem is considerably retarded and often distorted by the hierarchicalorder of bureaucracies. The centralized bureaucratic practices ofdecision-making and control do not allow for the effective transmissionof information while they inhibit initiative-taking at the local level. Onlya loosely coupled system with multiple loci of control, distributedthroughout its various operations, is capable of coping with the suddenturns or contingencies that currently face most organizations (Heckscherand Donnellon, 1994; Tsoukas, 1996).

There is no doubt that the distribution of control plays an importantrole in defining a system’s behaviour. But, again, the claim concerning thelimited adaptability of the bureaucratic form makes sense against thebackground of the tacit assumption that bureaucracy is governed by ahigh and largely invariable degree of centralization. However, thedevelopment and very diversity of the modern organizational landscapetells another story. A highly variable degree of centralization is seenthroughout the history of modernity and across the highly differentiatedcontexts underlying it (see, for example, Chandler, 1977). It is littlewonder that similar issues preoccupied organization theorists during thefirst two or three decades following the Second World War. Variousstudies document variable degrees of (de)centralization and delegation ofauthority. Unpredictable contingencies and ambiguous situations lead todecentralized patterns of action and flexible modes of operation (Burnsand Stalker, 1961; Perrow, 1967), segmentation and loose coupling


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(Simon, 1969; Galbraith, 1973; Weick, 1979) and not infrequently to theidiosyncratic patterns of behaviour March and Olsen (1976) summarizedwith the suggestive term ‘organized anarchies’. It may not have been byaccident that none of these authors ever claimed to have discovered thefoundations of a new organizational order. Furthermore, (de)centraliza-tion takes various forms. Decentralized initiative-taking in certaindomains may well go hand in hand with centralization in other domains.For instance, operational decisions may well be decentralized whilecrucial decisions are subjected to increasingly tight control and regu-lation (Power, 2002). The net outcome of similar patterns are hard topredict and it is even harder to weigh their relative significance inempirical contexts.

The fact that formal organizations exhibit a variable centralizationsuggests that the issue of the distribution of the loci of decisions may bedifficult to make the sole criterion for the demise of bureaucracy and theassumed emergence of alternative forms of organization. Neither theissue of centralization/distribution of authority nor that of standardiza-tion can be made the yardstick for deciding the limits of the bureaucraticform. No matter how important, these characteristics develop within theconstitutive framework of relations established by the non-inclusiveforms of human involvement and the selective, mobile and reversibleterms by which individuals are tied to organizations. These terms formthe very foundation of the bureaucratic organization. They constitute theprimary relation out of which other secondary or derivative character-istics emerge. It is important to uphold the distinction between primaryand derivative characteristics. Routines and standardized behaviour andcentralization are undeniably important yet derivative characteristics ofthe bureaucratic organization. They emerge on the very foundation,established by the clear separation of the individual from the organiza-tion, and the selective, mobile and reversible terms by which individualsare tied to organizations.

The cardinal importance of the modular, non-inclusive mode for regu-lating the individual–organization relationship comes to the fore againstthe background of another fundamental relation. That is, the non-inclusive mode represents the outcome of a choice that involves a binaryalternation (Kallinikos, 1988; Luhmann, 1995; Tsivacou 1997). You haveeither an inclusive or a non-inclusive mode of regulating the individual–organization relationship. It is impossible or, perhaps more correctly,inconsequential to have little of the former and little of the latter. It maybe possible to have different modes regulating separate aspects of anorganization but each aspect can be regulated by only one mode. Wereferred above to total organizations that regulate the life of inmatesthrough an inclusive, non-modular relationship. However, administra-tion in, say, prisons or mental hospitals is organized according to thenon-inclusive, modular relationships and administrative staff occupyand enact distinctive roles. The selection of either of the two alternatives


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introduces a code that brings into being a very distinctive mode oforganization. By contrast to this binary choice, characteristics likestandardization and centralization exhibit a graded intensity. It is alwayspossible to have more or less standardization or centralization. In thissense neither of these characteristics can become the ultimate arbiter fordeciding whether an organizational form is bureaucratic or not.

These claims therefore suggest that it is necessary to make a distinctionbetween constitutive and variable characteristics. The non-inclusivemode of human involvement in organizations provides the fundamentalcondition on the basis of which it is possible to decide whether a form oforganization is bureaucratic or not. The significance of variable character-istics, by contrast, develops within the framework established by theconstitutive function of the non-inclusive mode of human involvementin organizations. Variable characteristics precisely allow for distinguish-ing the contextual variation of the basic bureaucratic form.

ConclusionThe interpretation of bureaucracy suggested in the present articleundeniably involves a broad interpretation as to what counts as thisorganization form. In the final analysis, it tends to identify modernitywith bureaucracy. A clear consequence of such an interpretation is toconsider the overwhelming majority of formal organizations as bureau-cratic, differing only in terms of a number of secondary characteristicssuch as standardization and centralization.

Broad as it may be, the interpretation of bureaucracy advanced in thisarticle is indeed much closer to the spirit of Weber’s work, despite someambiguity present in his writings, as regards the place and the sig-nificance assigned to routine, standardized work (Weber, 1947, 1978). Itis even closer to the spirit of the writings of authors that have in one wayor another contributed to our understanding of modernity and bureau-cracy such as Smith, Marx or even Durkheim. Terms like ‘division oflabour’, ‘exchange value of labour’, ‘abstract or dead labour’ and‘commodification of labour’ describe the abstractions of modern condi-tions of work. They bear a strong resemblance to the concepts that wereused here to describe the non-inclusive modular foundation of bureau-cracy, namely selectivity (division of labour), mobility (commodificationof labour) and reversibility (exchange value). The institutionalization ofproperty rights and the expropriation of the workers from the means ofproduction (Marx, [1865] 1954, [1867] 1956) is just one expression of thefundamental relations we attempt here to describe with the notion of amodular, non-inclusive way of regulating the individual–organizationrelationship.

The broad interpretation of bureaucracy suggested here is triggered bythe alleged prospect of its demise and the current historical junction thatseems to be inducing the global re-evaluation of modernity and certain of


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its key characteristics. The assumption of the conclusion of an age andthe decline of its basic forms of organization inevitably prompt theexamination of the very foundations on which such forms rest. Thepresent article however suggests that only the substantial redefinition ofthe core, constitutive properties of bureaucracy that were here identifiedwith the non-inclusive forms of human involvement in organizations canreally break with the institutional principles bureaucracy embodies andembeds.

Second or late modernity seems at present to provide contradictorysignals as to where it wishes to go. On the one hand, the flexibilization ofwork moves definitely in the direction of making selectivity, mobility andreversibility even more pronounced than they have been up to the recentpast. On the other hand, institutional practices emerge that seek toinvolve individuals in organizations in terms that tend to blur themodern distinction between professional and personal life. Familybecomes a burden to professional development while crucial personalcharacteristics like sexual appeal and attractiveness, reserved once forthe realm of intimacy, are increasingly and systematically brought to bearon the accomplishment of organizational objectives. Long hours of workfurther weaken an already fragile community and public life (Murray etal., 2002). These trends seem to suggest that the boundaries of theinstitutional separation of work, family and community that sustainedthe non-inclusive involvement of individuals in organizations tendincreasingly to blur (Carnoy, 1992; Sennett, 2000). Elements reminiscentof the inclusive forms of human involvement in organizations re-emergeout of a past that seemed distant and parochial even two decades ago.Some of these trends are analysed in Kallinikos (2003) but they are of suchimportance as to demand a more thorough treatment in the future. Perhapsthe organization forms and work practices of the second modernity willinvolve combinations that seemed impossible and inconsequential fromthe horizon of our first modernity.

Notes1 The novels of Franz Kafka, The Trial and The Tower, stand here as major

examples. Though perhaps visionary images of some terrifying aspects ofmodernity in general, the novels can certainly be read as metaphoric descrip-tions of bureaucratic institutions. The artistic criticism against state adminis-tration is expressed well in the spirit of Dadaism and Surrealism but such asuspicious attitude towards large administrative systems can be re-encountered across most artistic movements throughout the last century. It isimportant to keep that in mind to understand the neo-romantic elements ofthe current criticism of bureaucracy.

2 Sennett (1992) suggests that the decline of the public world is a process thathas been in the making for quite a long time. The roots of current develop-ments, he claims, can be traced back to the 19th century. A similar, though


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differently motivated claim can be extracted from Hannah Arendt’s influentialbook, The Human Condition.

3 Some other trends that can be tied to the decline of the bureaucratic formsinvolve the so-called de-institutionalization of psychiatric care and the carefor the disabled and the elderly. However, rather than signifying the end ofbureaucracy these trends represent the decline of an organized practice that isby and large associated with total organizations as described in the precedingpages. Indeed, de-institutionalization in these cases implies that mentalpatients, disabled and elderly are redefined in terms that transform them frominmates to individuals tied to organizations of the welfare state in selective,mobile and reversible forms. In other words, de-institutionalization representsa trend toward rather than away from bureaucracy.

4 The principle of double articulation conceives of language as being composedof two levels. The first level entails those elements of language that lackimmediate meaning like phonemes and combinations of phonemes that do notreach the level of word where meaning first appears. Words, sentences,discourses are all meaningful elements whose substratum is made of non-meaningful phonemes (Barthes, 1967; Ricoeur, 1977).

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Jannis Kallinikos (PhD Uppsala University, Sweden) is a Reader in the Department ofInformation Systems at the London School of Economics. His major researchinterests involve the institutional construction of predictable worlds (that is, thepractices, technologies and formal languages by which formal organizations arerendered predictable and manageable) and the investigation of the modes bywhich current institutional and technological developments challenge the organi-zational forms that dominated modernity. He has published numerous articles injournals and collective works, and is the author of Technology and Society:Interdisciplinary Studies in Formal Organization (Munich, Accedo, 1996) and Inthe Age of Flexibility: Managing Organizations and Technology (Lund, Academia-Adacta, 2001). Address: London School of Economics, Department of InformationSystems, Houghton Street, Tower 1, London WC2A 2AE, UK. [email:[email protected]]


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The Social Foundations of the Bureaucratic Orderpersonal.lse.ac.uk/KALLINIK/pdf/KallinikosOrg.pdf · institution that inhibits economic growth and threatens ... bureaucracy to the